


All Around Me (And I Feel Warm)

by rosykookies



Series: And the Sun Will Rise [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Family Feels, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Steve Rogers-centric, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosykookies/pseuds/rosykookies
Summary: Once he’s finished, he can come home. He tells himself this as he exchanges a few parting words with Bruce and takes a last glance at Bucky’s resigned frown. When he comes back, he can explain it all to him. And maybe, if he’s lucky...they can do what Steve wished they’d done decades ago.Steve grips Mjölnir and the Stones’ briefcase tightly. When Bruce finally sends Steve into the quantum realm, he thinks of Bucky’s face.All These Beautiful Things I Can't Bear to Look Atfrom Steve's POV.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Series: And the Sun Will Rise [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601863
Comments: 9
Kudos: 129





	All Around Me (And I Feel Warm)

**Author's Note:**

> Aight part three! Last in the series. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Un-beta'd.
> 
> Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; all characters belong to the original creators.

Steve thought he’d have to think long and hard about what he wants to do with his future. And he does—think, that is. But in the end, it’s not the thinking that helps Steve make his decision.

He’s been avoiding Bucky and Sam like the plague, hoarding Tony and Bruce’s company because he knows they’re too busy working on the machine to ask questions about his personal life (or to even notice the internal struggle he’s facing). He’s felt unbearably guilty these last few days at the crestfallen expression on Bucky’s face every time he’d stolen himself away for the day and then gone to bed with little more than a brief hug.

He’s dodged any interaction with Bucky because he knows Bucky will push him to pursue a life with Peggy in the past. Sam, too, maybe, but Steve figures that Sam would at least make him weigh both options fairly instead of blindly urging him back to the past. The truth, Steve knows, though he wishes more than anything that it wasn’t the case, is that Bucky just doesn’t think he’s worth staying for. Steve doesn’t want to prove that to him, but he also needs to put himself first for once. He needs to know for himself what he wants without Bucky’s assumptions clouding his judgement.

The five years without half his family have taken a toll on him. Steve is tired; not just battle-worn but weary down to his bones. Each day without his family has been miserable, of course, but the guilt of learning to live without them is a weight heavier than he knows how to lift. Now that they’ve returned, it’s like the burden has been eased off his shoulder, only to be replaced by the strain of making his very important decision.

On the night before he leaves to put the Stones and Mjölnir back where they came from, Steve helps Sam do the dishes after dinner (despite Pepper’s insistence that they are guests and that Steve especially should get a good night’s rest). They talk; it’s the most they’ve talked since Sam came back. Sam doesn’t pry about Steve avoiding him. Instead, he fondly gripes about his ventures with Morgan (who Sam adores) and Bucky (who Sam grudgingly admits is not so bad for an asshole). In return, Steve catches him up on some of what he’d missed while he’d been gone. Sam is thoroughly impressed that Steve has even a small amount of pop culture knowledge.

Sam’s calming presence is like a balm to his worries. He hugs Sam after they both dry off their hands. Sam tells him to go to bed so that he’s good and ready for tomorrow, then invites him to lunch after Steve comes back from his mission. Steve accepts the offer and, as he watches Sam retreat down the hall to his guest room, he wonders why he’s avoided Sam all this time. He’s been worried that interacting with his friends would either guilt him into staying or push him into going. But All Steve can think about is how much he’d miss Sam if he left him behind.

He catches Bucky coming inside from the porch. His skin is cool to the touch when Steve gathers him against his chest. His hair is soft where it presses against Steve’s cheek. His hands are gentle where they grip Steve’s shirt at the small of his back. Steve can never leave this behind, he knows, as he breathes in the scent of the shampoo Tony had grudgingly loaned Bucky.

“Goodnight, Buck,” Steve whispers before letting go. Bucky doesn’t say a word. There’s something in his eyes as he watches Steve turn away, but Steve can’t put his finger on it. He’ll ask when he gets home from his mission.

* * *

It’s funny that Steve’s the one to tell Bucky not to do anything stupid ‘til he gets back. At first, he thinks that Bucky appreciates the reference, but as Bucky smiles a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and quietly echoes back Steve’s words from the night before Bucky had left for England, Steve isn’t so sure.

Steve can’t help himself from pulling Bucky into a hug. He doesn’t know if it’s to reassure Bucky or if its to comfort himself before the mission, but needs to breathe him in one last time before he goes. (He knows he’ll be just fine and that he’ll come back in one piece in a few hours. But he needs something to take with him.)

“Gonna miss you, buddy,” Bucky tells him softly when they step back from each other.

Steve puts an admirable amount of effort into schooling his features but there’s no way of telling if he manages. Bucky’s words confirm Steve’s worries. Steve knows how Bucky thinks. He knows what Bucky thinks of himself. Bucky thinks he’s leaving him and it’s entirely Steve’s fault for not telling Bucky otherwise.

But Steve can hear the machine powering up behind him and Bruce fiddling with the controls. There’s no time now to pull Bucky aside and explain everything to him. He’ll be gone in less than a minute and he’ll be back in five seconds. After that, they’ll have all the time in the world to clear the air between them. In a few seconds on Bucky’s end and a few hours on Steve’s, after almost 80 years apart from each other, they’d finally have _time_.

So what can Steve do but offer him what little assurance he can? “It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” he says. Not great, Steve admits to himself, but he forces himself to turn away and climb the steps to the time machine’s platform. He taps his wrist and the quantum suit wraps around his body. The exact time coordinates when the Stones left their timelines are programmed into his suit; the moment he arrives at those coordinates, the Stones will have never left and the timeline can’t split.

And then, once he’s finished, he can come home. He tells himself this as he exchanges a few parting words with Bruce and takes a last glance at Bucky’s resigned frown. When he comes back, he can explain it all to him. And maybe, if he’s lucky...they can do what Steve wished they’d done decades ago.

Steve grips Mjölnir and the Stones’ briefcase tightly. When Bruce finally sends Steve into the quantum realm, he thinks of Bucky’s face.

* * *

The Time Stone is easy to put back. He simply hands it to the woman—the Ancient One—waiting expectantly for him on a New York rooftop, pale and bald as Bruce said she was, simultaneously warm and aloof. There’s no scepter left to put the Mind Stone back in but he has the Ancient One’s assurance that as long as the Stones are returned seamlessly into their time streams as though they’d never left, it’d be okay, even if they weren’t put in the exact same place. He feels safe, then, leaving the Mind Stone, too, in her capable hands.

Steve has a trickier job getting the Reality Stone—the Aether—back into Jane Foster’s body, but Thor’s mom covers for him while he injects it back into Jane’s body and leaves Mjölnir leaning against a wall, then sends him on his way with a smile and a pat on the cheek.

The Power Stone is difficult for an entirely different reason; when he arrives on Morag, Nebula is passed out on the stone floor. He wants to move her or take her with him, but he has a job to do and Thanos’ ship has probably already arrived. He can’t risk jeopardizing the mission to wander around this unfamiliar place in search of somewhere to stash his friend and he certainly doesn’t have time to wait until Nebula wakes up or else Thanos will nab the both of them.

So he puts the Power Stone back (without its spherical housing) and spares a last, regretful glance at Nebula’s unconscious form before shrinking himself back into the quantum realm.

Steve goes to Lehigh next. He scrounges up another outfit and slips into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base without any trouble. He puts the Space Stone back where Tony had told him to put it, complete with a nanoparticle housing provided by Tony himself which looked enough like the Tesseract that it wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. Steve wonders then if it wouldn’t have been a good idea to have Tony make a nanotech scepter and a nanotech Orb but it’s far too late for that.

He remembers exactly where Peggy’s office is. He cracks her door open and slips inside, his footsteps and the click of the door behind him as he leans back and shuts it with his weight so silent that they are barely audible to his own enhanced ears, much less those of the woman engrossed in paperwork at the desk, her back to him.

Steve pushes himself out of the shadows and edges around the room, being sure to let his feet scuff loudly against the floor. Peggy’s head jerks up, eyes narrowing at him and following him as he comes to stand in front of her. He sets the briefcase on the floor. There is a spark of recognition in her eyes but her suspicion does not abate. Her hands slowly slide under the desk; of course she’d keep a gun fastened to the underside. Only Steve’s survival instincts keep him from smirking.

“Hi, Peg,” he greets. He tries to relax his body, make himself look less threatening and dubious. But he’s wearing the face of Peggy’s supposedly long-dead almost-boyfriend. There’s only so much he can do.

“You’re not my Steve,” Peggy says matter-of-factly.

Steve adds _incredibly intelligent_ and _extremely perceptive_ to the list of things Peggy still is. “No, I’m not,” Steve agrees. “But I also am.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning…” He sighs. How does he tell the girl he might have once married that he’s coming to her from the future after having been frozen in ice for nearly seven decades, that he woke up and has seen and fought aliens, that half the universe got wiped out, that he’s just participated in a great battle for the fate of said universe, and is now on a mission to return the Infinity Stones (which are a whole different conversation)?

Peggy’s eyes flit to the portrait of his young, skinny self before she stands up. Her hands are empty, meaning she at least trusts him enough not to have a gun pointed in his face. She comes around the corner of her desk, heels clicking as her confident footsteps bring her before him.

She’s almost forty years older than she had been when they’d first met but she is not an ounce less beautiful. Her hair is streaked with white but her lips are still full and painted red as rubies. Wrinkles mark her face and a divot runs deep between her eyebrows as she frowns over her papers but Steve can see evidence of laughter in the lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes and can see her family written in the shining, golden band around her ring finger. She’s lived a good life. Steve is so, so happy for her.

Peggy cups his jaw and tilts his face side-to-side, then hums. “You look tired, Steve.” Her hand drops. “How can you be here?”

Trust her to see right to the truth. Steve breathes a laugh out of his nose. “Long story, actually. Do you have time?”

“Well,” she says, “I don’t suppose this can wait until the weekend.”

“It can, actually.”

But Peggy just smiles and asks him to tell her everything.

* * *

Steve is thoroughly exhausted when he finishes. He’s sitting beside Peggy on the floor of her office against the wall. She’s holding one of his hands between both of hers, their warmth comforting him through the most difficult parts of his story. When he’s done talking, his voice is hoarse but a weight has been lifted from his chest; all these years it has felt like he still had asthma but all of a sudden he can _breathe_.

Peggy is silent for a long moment. Then, she beams at him, eyes bright, glimmering with sadness and joy. “I think this calls for a dance,” she declares.

Steve clambers to his feet and offers Peggy his hand. She takes it with a smile and guides him to the empty space in the middle of the office. There isn’t any music as they sway, one pair of hands clasped, the other resting against each other, but Steve feels something fall into place: the closure he never got.

“Tell me about you, Peggy,” Steve tells her.

Peggy’s chin digs into his chest. “Well…” And then she tells him about her adventures at the S.S.R with Howard and Edwin Jarvis, about her (evil) brother Michael, about marrying Daniel and founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and having children and living her life and being happy.

When she stops talking and the dance comes to a slow halt, she steps back and holds both of his hands in her own. “Steve and Barnes are still out there, aren’t they?” Peggy asks. “The ones from this...timeline.”

“Yeah, they are,” Steve confirms.

“Tell me where to find them.”

“Do you have a map?”

Peggy nods and drags him to her desk. From a drawer, she fishes out a map and smooths it out over her paperwork. It’s deeply creased and slightly yellowed with age. She hands him a pen and watches as Steve marks off two points and scribbles down two sets of coordinates, one off the coast of Greenland, and the other in the vast reaches of Siberia.

She stares down at the map. “I’ll bring them home, Steve.” Then she takes his arm. “And you,” she says, “shouldn’t you be getting home, too? Or rather, shouldn’t you be returning that last Infinity Stone and _then_ going home?

Steve chuckles. “Yeah, I should be.”

Peggy squeezes his arm. “Well, then. Off you go.”

He’ll never see her again, he knows. But he got to speak to a Peggy whose mind wasn’t too far gone to remember him. He got to listen to her speak about her life, to share his own with her in return. He’s fulfilled his debt to her—the dance he’s owed her all these years. He’s at peace with the fact that they will never meet again. And he can tell that she is, too. (Anyways, Steve thinks, she’ll find the Steve and Bucky from this timeline. They’ll be alright.)

Steve picks up the briefcase, containing only the Soul Stone, now, and they go to the middle of the room where they had been dancing minutes ago. Peggy gathers him in his arms and presses a kiss to his cheek. She wipes her lipstick smudge off with her thumb before she steps back and smiles. “Goodbye, Steve,” she tells him as his quantum suit forms around him. Her face is kind and her eyes are dry and clear and calm and contentment.

“Goodbye, Peg.”

She’s still smiling as he disappears.

* * *

Vormir is beautiful, Steve decides. The skies are a violent blend of orange and purple, and thick, white snowflakes are carried along on the brisk gusts of wind, twisting around the two stone pillars that tower above him. A figure in a black cloak hovers near the edge of the cliff, looking out towards the distant clouds.

Steve recognizes him before he even fully turns around. He takes a step back. He’d never expected to see that face again. He’d thought the Red Skull had died when he was sucked through whatever portal the tesseract had made, but here he is, in the flesh. A lifetime ago, Steve might have tried to do something, but now he is just tired, and somehow, he knows the Red Skull wasn’t going to attack.

“Steven, son of Sarah,” the Red Skull says, German accent still thick.

“Schmidt,” Steve replies warily.

Schmidt chuckles. “That is a name I have not heard in a long time.”

“Why are you here?”

Schmidt sighs. “I am a guide to the Soul Stone.” He looks at Steve with sharp, knowing eyes. “But you already have it.”

Steve flips open the briefcase and floats the Soul Stone out between his fingers.

“You are returning it, then,” Schmidt guesses.

“A soul for a soul, right?” Steve asks, gazing at the orange gem. “A friend of mine gave her life to get this. I’d like her back.”

“I do not decide, Captain. I only guide those who seek the Soul Stone and tell them its price.”

Steve’s eyes flicker up to meet Schmidt’s. “Who decides, then?”

“The Stone.”

Steve breathes out. “What do I do?”

Schmidt tilts his head towards the cliff.

Steve’s stride is confident as he walks to the edge of the cliff. “Will it work?” he asks, not daring to look over his shoulder but also not daring to look down. “If I throw this off, will she come back?”

“Nobody has ever _returned_ the Stone, Captain. But the Stone is fair. If the weight of the sacrifice is enough, it will work.”

Steve considers this. He’ll have to throw the Stone anyways. But if he throws it and it doesn’t get Nat back, then he’s lost all leverage. But the Red Skull has already told him that he’s only a guide. If this doesn’t work, who does Steve make his appeal to? Maybe he can go back in time and pluck a version of Natasha out of the past. She’ll be incomplete, maybe, and might feel like the victory delivered by her sacrifice doesn’t belong to her, but she’ll be real and alive.

That’s what he’ll do, Steve decides, then casts the Stone off the cliff. Only a few seconds pass before the world goes white.

* * *

Steve wakes up in water. The cliff and the Red Skull are gone, but the sky is still the same vibrant swirl of colour. He sits up, cold and wet, and looks around. Beside him, Natasha is also sitting up, red-blonde braid dripping.

Their eyes meet. “Steve?” Nat asks. “What happened? Where’s Clint?”

“He’s fine,” Steve answers numbly. “He’s at home with his family.”

“Family…” Nat’s eyebrows knit together for only a moment before it clicks. “So it worked? Everyone’s okay?”

“Everyone’s okay.” And then, in a wildly uncharacteristic lapse in emotional control, Steve launches himself at her and pulls her into a tight hug. Into her hair, he says, “Let’s go home.”

* * *

Sam and Bruce fuss over them both when they come back to the lakeside, but Steve’s just staring at the spot where Bucky had been standing. In the five-ish seconds that he’s been gone, Bucky has all but disappeared. (Don’t get Steve wrong—he’s thrilled to see Sam and Bruce both. But he’s waited over a century for this moment; he needs to find Bucky now.)

“Where is he?” Steve asks?”

Sam understands, like he always does, and nudges his chin in the direction of Tony’s cabin. “Took off. Towards the house.”

And then he’s off, the grass and the shimmering lake all but a blur as he speeds past them with single-minded focus. He can see Bucky’s figure up ahead. He’s walked far in very little time, probably walking incredibly fast without even realizing it. Bucky could do that, these days (if one took “these days” to mean five years ago). Just get lost in thought, go through the motions. Standing over the fields in Wakanda all those years back, Steve has decided that as soon as this was all over, he’d find a way to bring Bucky home.

So when he comes up behind Bucky now, he doesn’t hesitate before he reaches out his hand.

* * *

Bucky is all around him and Steve wants it to stay that way forever. His fingers slot between Steve’s like they were made to be there. (He knows he’s being cliché but he’s feeling silly and consumed with love so he gives himself a pass.) His hand feels empty but his heart is full when Bucky pulls Natasha, still sopping wet, into a hug. But then Bucky is back next to him in a heartbeat and his body is a comforting warmth against his side.

Then, later, as he, Bucky, Sam, Bruce, and Natasha, begin the trek back to Tony’s cabin, Bucky slides their fingers back together. Steve looks over at him but Bucky stares right on ahead, mouth tight like he’s nervous. Steve has known him long enough to know that he is—that he’s still doubting himself. But he also knows that this is a show of trust that he can’t take lightly.

So he gives Bucky’s hand a squeeze as they walk, and puts his arm around him as they collapse onto the sofa in Tony’s living room. Ten minutes later, he smiles as Bucky eases himself onto the hardwood, guided by the eager tugs of Morgan’s little hands, and runs his fingers through his hair. He catches Tony watching the two of them play on the floor, eagle-eyed but fond and far less wary than a week ago.

Throughout dinner, their hands are joined over Steve’s thigh. Sam chokes as he sips from his glass. Half the rest of his water spills down his front as his frame is wracked with coughs. Bucky makes a joke about Sam being able to save the world but not drink water properly. It isn’t even that funny but they’re all delirious with relief and joy that the whole table erupts in laughter.

Bruce is the loudest, and the table quakes with the force of his delight. Pepper’s laughter is soft and dignified; Morgan dissolves into giggles even though she probably doesn’t get the joke. Tony tries valiantly to keep a straight face but barely manages for longer than a second. Natasha’s shoulders shake gently; her grin is bright and air puffs out of her nose and Steve doesn’t think he’s seen her this happy in...ever.

Afterwards, as Steve leads Bucky to his bedroom, Natasha pins him with knowing, shining eyes and a teasing smile that Steve can’t help but return.

Steve hugs Bucky to his chest like he has done every one of these last few nights. But as Bucky begins to pull away, Steve grips him tighter, untucking his face from Bucky’s neck and pressing their foreheads together.

Bucky’s eyes are confused and pretty and icy blue. His lips are parted and pink. Steve has to ask.

Can I kiss you? he thinks. “Will you stay with me tonight?” is what he whispers instead. He doesn’t want to push too hard, doesn’t want Bucky to say yes because he thinks it’s what will make Steve happy. He adds, “You don’t have to.”

Bucky considers him for a moment. Then, he smiles, and replies, “Yes.”

* * *

They brush their teeth together. It’s so domestic that Steve feels a phantom pressure behind his eyes, but when he looks in the mirror, his eyes are dry.

They face each other under the covers. There’s no awkwardness; they’ve known each other since they were boys, shared a bed more times than Steve had bothered counting. Their limbs tangle together, and Steve traces patterns on Bucky’s hip where his shirt has ridden up while Bucky’s hands stay tucked between their chests.

Steve has always been impulsive. But blundering in with righteous passion and making a grand declaration of love is not what they need. Not when this is new and a little fragile, not when Bucky still needs to be convinced that he’s worth everything to Steve, not when a gesture like that can be interpreted as insincere overcompensation or relief-induced confusion. But he can ask for little things—things Bucky might refuse him or might give him. He’ll only know if he asks.

Steve opens his mouth and—

“Can I kiss you?” Bucky blurts, eyes wide and boring into his.

Bucky has always been brave.

When their lips meet, their kiss is soft and pliant. Bucky is all around him and Steve feels warm.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all folks! Thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/halcyonparker)!


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